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Confronting Death: Who Chooses, Who Controls? a Dialogue Between Dax Cowart and Robert Burt

Author

Cowart, Dax

Burt, Robert

Bibliographic Citation

Hastings Center Report. 1998 Jan-Feb; 28(1): 14-24.

Abstract

On 21 November 1996, Dax Cowart and Robert Burt jointly delivered the
Heather Koller Memorial Lecture at Pacific Lutheran University. This was the
first time that they spoke together in a public forum. Dax Cowart now lives
and practices law in Corpus Christi, Texas. In the summer of 1973, he was
critically injured in a propane gas explosion that took his father's life and
very deeply burned more than two-thirds of his own body. He was left blind and
without the use of his hands. For more than a year Dax underwent
extraordinarily painful treatments in the acute burn ward of two hospitals.
Throughout his ordeal he demanded to die by refusing consent to his
disinfectant treatments. Despite repeated declarations of competence by his
psychiatrist, all his pleas were rejected. In 1974, while still hospitalized,
he helped make the famous "Please Let Me Die" video, and in 1984 a second
video, "Dax's Case." In 1986 Dax Cowart received a law degree from Texas Tech
University. Burt and Cowart have corresponded over the course of several years
on the subject of Dax's case and related issues. They met for the first time
during their trip to Tacoma, Washington for the Koller Memorial Lecture. The
following is an edited transcript of their public remarks.